I won't be able to join the fun at this year's PSN meeting in San
Francisco, so I thought I'd post a short progress report on the status
of our Quake Trackers project, which has depended on the hardware,
software, ideas and unfailing assistance of the PSN.  

Thus PSN members can take the credit for the following success story:  
We have a yearly national exam for the equivalent of 10th graders and
this year there was a question about earthquakes on the exam.  The
students from our first Quake Trackers school came out of the exam all
excited because the question dealt with one of their favorite subjects.

I hope someone posts pictures again this year after the PSN meeting!

John Taber



Progress report - December 1999

Quake Trackers - New Zealand earthquake education project


     The Quake Trackers project has recently completed its
pilot year in New Zealand.  The project is patterned after
the Princeton Earth Physics Project (PEPP), and the project
could not have been initiated without the help of the Public
Seismic Network  (PSN), particularly Larry Cochrane and Dave
Nelson.  The hardware and the data acquisition and display
software are based around the PSN system developed by Larry
Cochrane and first used in NZ by Dave Nelson.  The Quake
Trackers seismographs use low cost, short period (4.5 Hz)
sensors, which are capable of detecting local earthquakes,
and GPS timing. Seismographs have been installed at 8 high
schools thus far and it is planned to add 5 schools per year
for the next 5 years (the time period for our current
funding from the NZ Earthquake Commission).

Hardware

The Quake Trackers system, designed by Tony Haver (VUW) and
Michelle Robertson (Recon Inc.),  is composed of:  1.) a 4.5
Hz three-component pvc geophone package buried just below
the surface, leveled and cemented in place inside a
protective enclosure,  2.) a GPS antenna, mounted out-of-
reach on a galvanised bracket to the side of the school
building,  3.) a 19-inch rack-mounted electronics unit, with
separate removable shielded modules for the line/calibration
card, the 24VAC power supply, the preamp/filter, and the GPS
receiver, and  4.) a 486-PC, to interface with the
electronics, keep accurate time via 1PPS output from the GPS
receiver, and record the seismicity through the program SDR
written by Larry Cochrane.  If any of the components need
repair or upgrading in the future, it is a simple matter of
removing the old module and replacing it with the new one
with minimal disruption to students and data.

Parts List:
Seismometers:   Geospace GS11-D 4.5 Hz, one vertical, two horizontals
GPS antenna:    Synergy Systems, LLC     VIC-100 antenna
GPS receiver:   Motorola Oncore GT+ 8-channel
GPS interface:  TAPR daughter RS232 interface
Preamp/filter:  Larry Cochrane's Webtronics  3-channel preamp/filter
A/D card:       Larry Cochrane's Webtronics 16-bit A/D


Data transfer

All data acquisition PCs are currently stand-alone, so data
transfer of triggered events is done manually via floppy
disk or zip drive to a PC with access to our website
database.  The schools are not yet transferring data on a
regular basis.

Future hardware plans

We plan to add a low-cost accelerometer to each of the
sites, perhaps using the USGS Tremor design. We also want to
add dial-in/dial-out capability to each of the data
acquisition PCs, either via connection to each school's
computer network or else via a dedicated modem and phone
line.  This will allow near-real-time transfer of the strong
motion data to a central site.

The short-period sensors are capable of recording large
events (M>6) throughout the country and a typical school
records 10-20 local events per month.  Students have been
encouraged to build simple long period sensors to add to the
system (the Lehman design from the old Scientific American
article), but none have yet done so.   If a ready-made
version of Sean-Thomas Morrissey's low cost broad-band
sensor becomes available, we would like to replace the
short-period vertical sensors.

Website  and computer programs

Efforts have focussed on providing New Zealand specific
educational modules and information, modifying some of the
PEPP modules, and the establishment of an online database of
NZ earthquake recordings.  The data can be viewed using
Larry Cochrane's WinQuake. Students can view seismicity
plots using either Alan Jones's seismic eruption program or
using a NZ database set up for use with ArcExplorer.


School interactions

Once the recording system is installed, we provide training,
technical support, and educational outreach at each
participating school. Regular visits in the first two weeks
after installation gives us the chance to not only tune the
triggering software to the individual site, but also to get
to know the students and teachers, and train them how to use
the equipment. After this two-week period, we keep in
contact with the teachers, checking if they have any
questions or problems, and keep regular communications by
email and telephone.  Up until now the training on the use
of the hardware has been done individually at each school,
but starting in February 2000 (the beginning of the NZ
school year), we will be holding an annual teacher training
workshop.

Web Site:www.quaketrackers.ac.nz

John Taber, John.Taber@.........
Mike Kozuch, M.Kozuch@..........
Michelle Robertson, recon.inc@..........
Tony Haver, Tony.Haver@.........




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